EA purchases the Rupture social networking site

Shawn Fanning's Rupture social network has been purchased by the folks at Electronic Arts, changing the course of the network's planned use as a hub for World of Warcraft players. EA spent some $30 million in the deal, though there are still some details to be nailed down. TechCrunch broke the story yesterday afternoon, and refers to this as Fanning's "big payday", finally rewarding him financially after a series of successful but ultimately not lucrative business ventures.

The article offers the observation that this is purely a technology purchase, as the service never made it into its planned second phase. The Beta service, at it exists now, simply doesn't have that many users. It's an easy guess as to what the software giant hopes to gain from this acquisition. EA Mythic's Warhammer Online and BioWare's as-yet-unannounced MMO title could be easily fitted into this framework, providing a method for players of these new games to connect on the web. We'll be sure to keep you posted as more details on this still in-transit deal comes to fruition.